Insane New MTG Star Trek Legend Turns Faeries Into Free Spells

As with all Universes Beyond sets, MTG Star Trek is absolutely stuffed with legendary creatures. While many of these feel like fairly generic creatures with famous faces painted on, there are some genuine highlights as well.

Revealed in yesterday’s Scene Box dump, Q, Your Illustrious Host is one such legend. With a unique ability and all five colors to work with, this is one you’ll likely be seeing in your pod before long.

Q, Your Illustrious Host MTG

Q, Your Illustrious Host is a deceptively simple card, packing just a single activated ability and a 5/5 body for its WUBRG cost. By tapping down three Faeries, you essentially get an Etali, Primal Conqueror Etali, Primal Conqueror Trample
When Etali enters, each player exiles cards from the top of their library until they exile a nonland card. You may cast any number of spells from among the nonland cards exiled this way without paying their mana costs.
{9}{G/P}: Transform Etali. Activate only as a sorcery. trigger for your own deck, letting you cast your next spell for free.

Naturally, this makes Q, Your Illustrious Host an excellent choice for a Faerie Typal Commander. With tons of token generators and go-wide synergies available for the creature type, enabling Q is surprisingly easy.

Your best bets are cards that create Faerie tokens over time, like Bitterblossom Bitterblossom At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life and create a 1/1 black Faerie Rogue creature token with flying. and Bitterbloom Bearer Bitterbloom Bearer Flash
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life and create a 1/1 blue and black Faerie creature token with flying. . Pestered Wellguard Pestered Wellguard Whenever this creature becomes tapped, create a 1/1 blue and black Faerie creature token with flying. is particularly nice, since it gives you extra Faeries when you tap it for Q’s effect, creating a spicy snowball effect.

Going bigger, cards like Ancient Gold Dragon Ancient Gold Dragon Flying
Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, roll a d20. You create a number of 1/1 blue Faerie Dragon creature tokens with flying equal to the result. and Elminster Elminster Whenever you scry, the next instant or sorcery spell you cast this turn costs {X} less to cast, where X is the number of cards looked at while scrying this way.
+2: Draw a card, then scry 2.
−3: Exile the top card of your library. Create a number of 1/1 blue Faerie Dragon creature tokens with flying equal to that card's mana value.
Elminster can be your commander. are great for setting up multiple Q activations at once, if luck is on your side. These double as strong payoffs for Q’s ability snowballing into even more activations.

Since Q is a five-color Commander, you can also tap into token synergies that Faerie decks typically don’t have access to. Doublers like Anointed Procession Anointed Procession If an effect would create one or more tokens under your control, it creates twice that many of those tokens instead. and Parallel Lives Parallel Lives If an effect would create one or more tokens under your control, it creates twice that many of those tokens instead. will let you rapidly take over the board and get Q activations going as soon as possible.

While you’re on the tokens train, cards like Cryptolith Rite Cryptolith Rite Creatures you control have "{T}: Add one mana of any color." and Enduring Vitality Enduring Vitality Vigilance
Creatures you control have "{T}: Add one mana of any color."
When Enduring Vitality dies, if it was a creature, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control. It's an enchantment. (It's not a creature.) are fantastic as well. These can help cheat out the haymakers that you accidentally draw, generating tons of mana.

Controlled Chaos

Speaking of draws, you’ll definitely want to invest in topdeck manipulation with Q to control what you cheat out each time. Cards like Scroll Rack Scroll Rack {1}, {T}: Exile any number of cards from your hand face down. Put that many cards from the top of your library into your hand. Then look at the exiled cards and put them on top of your library in any order. and Sensei’s Divining Top Sensei’s Divining Top {1}: Look at the top three cards of your library, then put them back in any order.
{T}: Draw a card, then put this artifact on top of its owner's library. are classics in this department, and green gives you access to Sylvan Library Sylvan Library At the beginning of your draw step, you may draw two additional cards. If you do, choose two cards in your hand drawn this turn. For each of those cards, pay 4 life or put the card on top of your library. and Mirri’s Guile Mirri’s Guile At the beginning of your upkeep, you may look at the top three cards of your library, then put them back in any order. , too.

At higher-bracket tables, topdeck tutors like Vampiric Tutor Vampiric Tutor Search your library for a card, then shuffle and put that card on top. You lose 2 life. and Worldly Tutor Worldly Tutor Search your library for a creature card, reveal it, then shuffle and put the card on top. can also set up exactly what you need on demand.

This kind of selection is valuable for Q in general, but especially if you want to use his ability on opponents’ turns. Mass untappers like Seedborn Muse Seedborn Muse Untap all permanents you control during each other player's untap step. will let you do this, and the ability itself will let you ignore timing restrictions.

That said, things can get awkward if you end up flipping over removal or countermagic with Q, especially on an opponent’s turn. For this reason, check your next card in advance when possible; cards like Future Sight Future Sight Play with the top card of your library revealed.
You may play lands and cast spells from the top of your library. can help.

Since Q casts all of his spells from exile, you can tap into plenty of synergies there for extra value. Cards like Passionate Archaeologist Passionate Archaeologist Commander creatures you own have "Whenever you cast a spell from exile, this creature deals damage equal to that spell's mana value to target opponent." give you extra damage, Vega, the Watcher Vega, the Watcher Flying
Whenever you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand, draw a card. gives you bonus draw, and Spider-Verse Spider-Verse The "legend rule" doesn't apply to Spiders you control.
Whenever you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand, you may copy it. If you do, you may choose new targets for the copy. If the copy is a permanent spell, it gains haste. Do this only once each turn. straight-up copies your spells.

With so many cards going into exile over time thanks to Q’s ability, you can also leverage payoffs like Laelia, the Blade Reforged Laelia, the Blade Reforged Haste
Whenever Laelia attacks, exile the top card of your library. You may play that card this turn.
Whenever one or more cards are put into exile from your library and/or your graveyard, put a +1/+1 counter on Laelia. as full-on win conditions.

Cast One, Cast All!

Speaking of win conditions, Q, Your Illustrious Host also enables a suite of infinite combos that can easily close out many games on the spot.

Intruder Alarm Intruder Alarm Creatures don't untap during their controllers' untap steps.
Whenever a creature enters, untap all creatures. is the key to most of these, as it untaps your entire board whenever a creature enters play, setting up all your Faeries to tap again. If you can consistently create a creature each time you cast a spell, this essentially lets you cast every nonland card in your deck with Q and three Faeries out.

There are multiple ways to achieve this, the easiest of which is with token generators like Pia Nalaar, Consul of Revival Pia Nalaar, Consul of Revival Thopters you control have haste.
Whenever you play a land from exile or cast a spell from exile, create a 1/1 colorless Thopter artifact creature token with flying. and Iraxxa, Empress of Mars Iraxxa, Empress of Mars Trample
Battle cry (Whenever this creature attacks, each other attacking creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn.)
Paradox — Whenever you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand, create a 2/2 red Alien Warrior creature token. . Both make a token when you cast a spell from exile, so both will untap your whole board after each Q activation.

Alternatively, you can combine multiple cards to make tokens when you cast different card types, like Oltec Matterweaver Oltec Matterweaver Whenever you cast a creature spell, choose one —
• Create a 1/1 colorless Gnome artifact creature token.
• Create a token that's a copy of target artifact token you control. for creatures and Third Path Iconoclast Third Path Iconoclast Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, create a 1/1 colorless Soldier artifact creature token. for noncreatures. Either way, the end result is the same.

While most Q builds can win by dumping a ton of spells and threats this way, his five-color identity also lets you run any combo win you want. Whether you want to keep it simple with Thassa’s Oracle Thassa’s Oracle When this creature enters, look at the top X cards of your library, where X is your devotion to blue. Put up to one of them on top of your library and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. If X is greater than or equal to the number of cards in your library, you win the game. (Each {U} in the mana costs of permanents you control counts toward your devotion to blue.) and Demonic Consultation Demonic Consultation Choose a card name. Exile the top six cards of your library, then reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a card with the chosen name. Put that card into your hand and exile all other cards revealed this way. , or set up a Gravecrawler Gravecrawler This creature can't block.
You may cast this card from your graveyard as long as you control a Zombie. and Warren Soultrader Warren Soultrader Pay 1 life, Sacrifice another creature: Create a Treasure token. (It's an artifact with "{T}, Sacrifice this token: Add one mana of any color.") loop, there are tons of options.

Heck, you could even leverage the token generation this line provides and run Craterhoof Behemoth Craterhoof Behemoth Haste
When this creature enters, creatures you control gain trample and get +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of creatures you control. and friends here, winning through a huge creature horde generated in a single turn.

Overall, while most of the five-color Commanders we’ve seen recently have felt a bit samey and boring, Q is anything but. It pushes you toward Faeries, yes, but beyond that, how you build the rest of the list is up to you.

Much like Smaug the Impenetrable Smaug the Impenetrable Flying, indestructible, haste
Whenever Smaug is dealt noncombat damage, create that many Treasure tokens. from The Hobbit Scene Boxes, I predict Q will be a sought-after, and potentially pricey, Commander before long, especially given the supplemental product delays we’re seeing.

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